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CAIRO | January 21, 2012 Two days before the assembly's first meeting following the thwart of Hosni Mubarak close to 1 year ago, it is apparent that the Muslim Brotherhood Islamists led by the Freedom and Justice Party emerged as the largest group in Egypt's new parliament winning 235 of the 498 elected seats in the lower house. . The new parliament, due to hold its first session on Jan. 23, "is the best celebration of the Egyptian revolution," Freedom and Justice said in a statement according to a report in Bloomberg. A breakdown of election results from party lists: 332 members of parliament Freedom and Justice - 127 Nour party - 96 Wafd party - 36 Egyptian Bloc - 33 The assembly is to select a committee that will write a new constitution, though the exact powers of parliament remain unclear. Protesters that ousted Mubarak continue to call for mass rallies on January 25, the anniversary of the beginning of the Egyptian uprising against Mubarak. And although Egyptians have had seven weeks of democratic elections, it has failed to calm tensions between activists and the military council that took power from the ousted President. The military council has said it would cede power when a president is elected in a national vote by the end of June. Due to the state of unrest and lack of tourism, Egypt's economy has seen better days. Egypt formally requested a $3.2 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund on Jan. 16 to help it support its economy.

Last week brought news that the Egyptian government is circulating a new draft NGO law, one which would severely restrict available space for civil society and criminalize the activities of unregistered civic organizations. A coalition of 41 NGOs, headlin

Gates reportedly said after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that American military assistance to his country is not conditional upon democracy or human rights. I know this only because it is being reported on al-Jazeera. I have not been abl

After gaining overwhelming support in a March 2007 national referendum, long-time Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak introduced new constitutional amendments that effectively give more power to the president and loosen controls on security forces. Mubarak's amendments constitute the latest move in a set of orchestrated plans not only to entrench the stronghold of his own National Democratic Party and pave the way for his son as his successor but also to curb the power and ambition of his greatest opposition - the Muslim Brotherhood. As he steps into his fifth consecutive six-year term in office, Mubarak and his regime are being met with harsh criticism as opposition groups, human rights advocates and Western governments urge for meaningful democratic reform in the country. But promoting democracy is a complex issue in Egypt, and indeed in much of the Arab world. Mubarak and other leaders face the Islamist Dilemma, where any move toward a more democracy-friendly political system threatens to empower Islamic militants and open the floodgates for non-secular political parties.

The first wave of academic writings on Islamists emerged in the Arab world after the war of June 1967 and the subsequent resurfacing of religious ideologies and religiously inspired social and political movements. Examples in this first wave include works by the Syrian philosopher Sadiq Jalal al-ʿAzm, the Egyptian philosopher Hassan Hanafi, and the Moroccan historian ʿAbdullah al-ʿArawi. These writings advanced three insights. First, the rise of "religious movements," "religious currents," and "religious ideologies"-the term islāmī or Islamist was yet to be coined-was seen by some writers as a serious challenge to the legitimacy of the secular state and the secular idea of Pan-Arabism. Second, other writers accused Arab ruling establishments in modernizing countries-the reference was primarily to post-1967 Egypt-of using religious currents and ideologies to enhance the state's popularity and legitimacy in times of crisis. Third, Wahhabism and petrodollars were held responsible by some for the resurfacing of religious currents and their increased appeal in the contest with secular ideas. Most of the writings of the first wave were Egypt centered and were clearly inspired by an antireligious sentiment that saw religious movements and currents as representing an existential threat to secular modernization and progress